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Commentary: Hiring comedians to insult Republicans is not how journalists will regain the trust of Americans

Michelle Wolf speaks during the White House Correspondent's Dinner. YouTube

In January of this year Gallup released a poll showing 84 percent of Americans thinking the press is very important to the health of our democracy, but 43 percent saying journalists were doing a very poor job of supporting it.

The primary defense of Wolf’s “jokes” seems to be that Trump deserves it because he, too, is crude and mean-spirited.

And he is. Trump’s critics can point to a laundry list of terrible things he’s said and done.

But is that really what Trump’s critics aspire to? To be as awful in their rhetoric as the President they hate can be?

I’m not here to judge Wolf’s routine. It didn’t seem particularly funny to me, but that’s a subjective thing. In another context, at a different sort of event, it would hardly be noteworthy. Just another unoriginal diatribe from the cacophony of entertainers who hate Republicans.